Smith propels Malverne tennis

Though she had long since established herself as perhaps Malverne’s greatest girls’ tennis player, Jamila Smith announced before the season that this fall would be her swan song in the sport.
Smith – a senior who holds the Mules’ all-time record with 950 games won across her six-year varsity career – has said she will hang up her racquet to focus on academics in college.
To be sure, women’s college tennis will be all the poorer, but Malverne this autumn only prospered – riding its All-Conference first-singles sensation’s 14-0 record to a 12-2 finish in Nassau Conference 4 to claim its first league title since 2018.
“Without Jamila, we definitely could not have been the conference champs,” said second-year coach Joe Dunn. “She’s an incredible player. Aggressive, powerful. Great forehand. Probably one of the best serves in Nassau County. If Covid hadn’t shortened one of our seasons, she would have had over a thousand wins. Just a player that overpowers her opponents.”
Junior Abby Prucha, Smith’s heir apparent, also was perfect for Malverne, winning 14 matches at second singles. “If not for Jamila being so good, Abby would definitely have been our first singles this year,” Dunn said. “She’s more of a precision player, as opposed to Jamila’s power game.”

“Abby really worked on her serve after last year, and didn’t double fault much this season,” Dunn added. “She really never even felt much pressure from any opponent. She added that nice serve to become more of a complete player. She was really basically a singles-one player who was playing at number two singles for us.”
Providing a decisive boost at second doubles, the junior tandem of Rachel Adeyemi and Gabby Franco went 9-3 in league matches for Malverne, delivering a signature, third-set tiebreak win at Valley Stream South Sept. 14. “You could tell the girls were exhausted,” Dunn said. “But the team was watching had their back, which helped them pull through. At that point, early in the season, I knew this team was all-in. They really wanted to win every match.”
With her quasi-comeback 10-7 win over Shainne Fischer of Long Beach, Smith – whose 5-1 lead in the match had slipped away into a tiebreak – became Malverne’s first ever singles entrant in the round of 16 at the Nassau County Tennis Championships Oct. 15 at Eisenhower State Park. “Jamila looked tired,” Dunn recalled. “It was a mental battle for her. It was just a matter of her stopping to realize, ‘I’m the better player here.” Once that happened, she took it to another level and pulled through.”
Facing reigning Nassau champion Isabella Sha of Friends Academy, Smith’s season would end at the doorstep of the quarterfinals, as she fell 6-4 to the eventual two-time county champ.
“This team was really brought up by coach (Patrice) Ward; she laid the foundation,” Dunn said. “As a new coach, I could see these girls were very good and had a lot of talent. But the kids are the ones who have to believe it. Once they did, they started playing with confidence. And the wins started stacking up.”